10
Harry Thurmont was dapper in his pin-striped suit and high, oversized collar as he watched her from behind his free-form Plexiglas desk. Behind him, framed in a wide picture window, was the White House and, beyond, the Washington Monument. The senior partner in Oliver's firm had a similar view, Barbara thought suddenly, remembering that Oliver had once told her that such a view automatically doubled the fee.
'He hasn't moved out. I don't understand it,' Barbara said. She sat in a deep easy chair, watching Thurmont's pink face. He had a reddish, bulbous nose and watery gray eyes. 'A drinker' was her first thought until he announced that he was AA, insisting on the reformed drunk's obligatory precis of his life.
'My elbow is permanently bent,' he told her. 'But since I'm off the sauce, I'm mean as hell.'
‘I hope that side of you won't be necessary,' she had told him at their first meeting two days ago. She wasn't so sure now.
'He's like some kind of animal. Almost invisible. He leaves early, before we get up, and comes home late, long after we've gone to bed. He doesn't take his meals at home. I know Eve called him at the office and they spoke for a long time. And he's been in touch with Josh. I think he met him yesterday after school. He's really a good man. Believe me, if there was another way . . .' Her voice trailed off.
'More or less typical,' Thurmont said. 'I'm in touch with Goldstein and we'll take it from there. The wisest thing is to let him phase out in his own time. 'Suppose he doesn't?'
'Well, then, are you prepared to move out?'
It had begun to confuse her. Not that she had thought through any of it. She was simply obeying her instincts, knowing that it was absolutely necessary to do what she had done. She felt, quite literally, free.
'Of course I'm not going to move out of my own house,' she said flatly.
'It's also his,' Thurmont said quietly, fastening his eyes on her face, inspecting her.
'It's unthinkable,' she said. 'You know that. I know that. He knows that.' She stood up and walked to the window behind his desk, watching the sun glinting on the rump of Jackson's horse in the middle of Lafayette Park. He picked up a typed sheet, put on his half glasses, and studied the page.
'He's agreed to two thousand a month to run the house, the kids, the whole kebash. He'll pay the tuition at Sidwell Friends. That's for starters to get us going on the road to the final settlement. There's a whole procedure to be followed. Physical separation for six months. Things like that.' He turned toward her, watching her, a canny smile on his face. The half glasses made him look shrewd. 'In an uncontested situation, we'll just hammer out a plan. Goldstein's a pain in the ass. A talmudic Jew, always pinning arguments on great moral tenets. He runs up the rate. So far, your husband has been a pushover.'
'He's very family oriented,' she said.
He put down the paper and removed his glasses. 'You're not home safe by any means.' He reached over to a carved wooden humidor and drew out a short cigar, ceremoniously sucking the wrapper before he lit it. 'The major question in these events is how we divide the spoils. Possessions. It's the curse of the age. Next to child custody, which is wasteful and destructive. Property is different. It only looks simple. Here's mine. Here's yours. Like making a treaty in some ninth-century war between kingdoms. Your husband's accountant is doing an inventory and as soon as that's done we can cut into the carcass.'
She hadn't been prepared for any of it. There's no school for divorce, her divorced friends had asserted. They hadn't gone into the substance of her material settlement, only the abstractions of what it meant to be on one's own, the joy and the pain. And, of course, the different men. Barbara had been mesmerized by that part of it. 'Most of them are like children,' one of her friends, Peggy Laughton, had pointed out. She had been a housewife, professional volunteer, and, as she characterized it, 'an occasional Saturday-night fucker.' She had been lighthearted, amusing, full of cute little dirty digs like 'I didn't even know I was sexy. Now my blow jobs are getting great word of mouth.' Remembering, Barbara grinned. She was eager to taste this aspect of her freedom.
'He's already offered you half the value of the house. But that's only the opening gambit. A bit of bull-shit. It's you who probably have the handle on that one. Unless, as I said before, you intend to move out. The upkeep is going to be fairly steep.'
'My business is starting to roll,' she said. 'With his payments and my extra income, that should do it.'
He shook his head and smiled.
'You didn't understand the implication.' She wondered suddenly why she hadn't consulted a woman attorney. Surely a woman would have been more understanding, more tactful. They are all in it together, she decided, gathering a cloak of caution around her, remembering Peggy's words: 'It's that goddamned cock of theirs. All their brains are there. Never mind palm reading. Reading the ridges of their cocks. You can really tell a man's character from that.'
Suddenly the drawbridge over the moat went up. What she detested most was Thurmont's posturing and superiority, as if he were the possessor of some special knowledge.
'He offered you half the value of the house and its possessions. Not the house. Not what you have inside it. The value. Which means that an independent appraiser will look things over and determine what the real market value is. Then Oliver will probably go out and borrow the money and make one big settlement. As near as I can figure without the inventory, you might walk away with, say, between four or five hundred thou after fees. It's a heavy wad. Should get you through the long, hard winter.'
He stood up and walked toward her, leaving his cigar in the ashtray. She saw his shadow loom close and caught the whiff of his musky cologne. For a moment she felt herself bracing for a physical onslaught. For some reason, she was certain, he had decided to make a pass. He didn't, merely standing over her, looking down, underlining her helplessness.
'I don't think that's fair,' she said.
'Fair?' He stopped abruptly and she wondered if she had headed him off. She was annoyed that he had not made a pass. Maybe being fair game is what she really wanted, a real declaration of independence. With the exception of Josh and Oliver, she had no idea of what other men really looked like, felt like. That, too, wasn't fair.
'Are you going to lecture me about 'fair'?' he said.
